Page images
PDF
EPUB

that have created all the wealth of the nation, shall remain in ignorance and poverty. Our children must be educated to qualify them for their rank in the world. We that have been born in the palace, must have fine houses, and fine furniture and fine clothes, with a train of servants; while the swinish multitude, who have been whelped in the stable, or the cottage, have no need of such fine things. But a new order of things will take place ere long; the march ofmind will change the whole scene of things; the light of the gospel and light of science will regenerate the world, and the monster aristocracy, be blotted out of existence.

Ye that the rising sun invidious mark,

And hate the light-because your deeds are dark:

Ye that expanding truth invidious view,

And think, or wish the song of hope untrue!
Perhaps your little hands presume to span,
The march of Genius, and the powers of man;
Perhaps ye watch, at prides unhallowed shrine,
Her victims, newly slain, and thus divine;-
"Here shall thy triumph, Genius cease; and here,
Truth, Science, Virtue, close your short career."
Yes, ye proud lords, unpitied lands! shall sce
That man hath yet a soul, and dare be free!
A little while, along thy saddening plains,
The Starless night of desolation reigns;
Truth shall restore the light by Nature given,
And, like Prometheus, bring the fire of Heav'n!
Prone to the dust oppression shall be hurl'd,-
Her name, her nature, wither'd from the world!

CAMPEELL'S PLEASURES OF HOPE. The population of the British Empire, has been calculated at 95,000,000 souls, of which 70,000,000, are in India. The Roman Empire, in the zenith of its glory, contained but 120,000,000, of whom one half were slaves. On the British dominions, the sun never sets; since before his evening rays with

draw, from the steeples of Quebec, his morning rays have enlightened the banks of the Ganges. The value of her landed property, in England alone, has been computed at sixteen hundred millions pounds sterling, with the ability to supply the wants of the world from her workshops. Her exportations for the year 1829, were about fifty millions of dollars, to the United States alone. And yet, the oppressions of aristocracy are such, that though the working part of her population, by the aid of machinery, perform as much labor as the working part of the population of the whole world could do without machinery.— Yet, these industrious and excellent artizans, are literally starving for want of bread! And they which make clothing for almost the whole of the human race, are shivering in rags; and if they produced ten times as much, their case would be no better-aristocracy would absorb it all-the world has always been too small for aristocratic avarice.

Let us now take a cursory view of what British aristocracy has perpetrated in our own country. It is a well authenticated fact, that they hired the merciless savages to butcher and scalp our defenceless frontier settlers, from one end of the continent to the other, during our revolutionary struggle, and long after, till the successful campaign of 1794, commanded by the heroic, the intrepid Wayne. One of their agents, to show that their secret service money was not expended in vain, sent over to his royal master, George the III, king ofGreat Britain, France and Ireland, eight bales of scalps, containing many thousands, dried and packed up, in dressed elk skins, marked in the rude manner of indian painting, with the figure of each kind of persons scalped on the bale. One was old men, with bald heads; another was old women; another, was middle aged men and women; another was young men, and young women; another was boys and girls, with tadpoles painted on each cheek resembling tears; the last was a bale of little infant's scalps, without the tadpoles, as incapable of shedding tears, being killed before they were born, taken out oftheir mothers' womba!!!

There was scarcely a family on our extensive frontier, that has not lost one or more of their dear relatives in this fiend-like warfare! the doings of British aristocracy!!!!

CHAPTER III.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

The following is copied from the Wheeling Eclectic Obsèr ver of July 21st, 1830, which gives a correct veiw of the effects of English aristocracy in her many and bloody wars.

The piece below presents us with a truly deplorable picture of the consequences of war, which we earnestly hope will be carefully read and faithfully treasured in the mindof every reader. To speak within bounds, the wealth sacrificed in the wars of England, in the last hundred and thirty years, would have supported every man, woman and child in Great Britain, In ease and entire idleness, during two generations, and at the same time, given them a complete education, according to the most expensive systems. But if we take into consideration all the domestic wretchednes and individual suffering—estimated by our own feelings when we suffer-that these wars have produced, the heart sickens at the reflection, and turns to curse the policy that derives its support from the misery of man.— Had this view of war been taken by the British soldiery, would a battle have ever been fought? No not one!

"Of 127 years, terminating in 1825,England spent 65 in war, and 62 in peace. The war of 1688, after raising our expenditure in that period thirty six millions, was ended by the trea ty of Ryswick in 1697. Then came the war of the Spanish succession, which began in 1702, concluded in 1723, and absorbed sixty two and a half millions of our money. Next was the Spanish war of 1730, setiled finally at Ax-la-Chapelle, in 1748 af er costing us nearly fifty-four millions. Then came the 'seven years war' of 1756, which terminated with the treaty of Paris, in 1763, in the course of which we spent one hundred and twelve millions. The next was the American war of 1775.

which lasted eight years. Our national expenditure in this time was one hundred and thirty six millions, The French Revolutionary war began in 1793, lasted nine years, and exhibited an expenditure of four hundred and sixty four millions.The war against Buonaparte began in 183, and ended in 1815. During these twelve years, we spent eleven hundred and fifty nine millions(!!!) seven hundred and seventy one of which were raised by taxes, and three hundred and eighty eight by loans, In the revolutionary,we borrowed two hundred and one millions; in the American, one hundred and four millions; in the 'seven years war,' sixty millions; in the war of the Spanish succession, thirty two and a half millions; in the war of 1C88, twenty mil lions; total borrowed in the seven wars, during sixty five years, about eight hundred and thirty four millions. In the same time, we raised by taxes, eleven hundred and eighty nine mil lions: thus forming a total expenditure of two thousand and twenty three millions of pounds sterling!!!!

[ocr errors]

We will not merely say that this money was thrown away; it was mainly expended in hiring men to become the butchers of men. The object of its expenditure was to prevent reformation at home, and the growth of Liberty abroad. What have we gained by it as a nation? and what is the present condition of the men who contrived, matured and induced others to execute the murderous plans that have exhausted so much of the national wealth? We are taxed up to the eyes. We are not al lowed to buy food of those who would take the products of our industry in return for it. Even the tories represent the coun try to be in a state of increasing wretchedness, and our monied men are hourly expecting some dreadful panic, Abroad we are scorned, and at home we present the miserable spectacle of men actually overloaded with riches, whilst the immense majority of the people are living from hand to mouth, and not knowing in the morning how they shall proyide support for the day. Capital is so plentiful in the hands of a few monied men, that they are seeking to contract loans with foreign powers, at

the same time that almost every tradesman complains of the want of money to carry on his business. We know of no trade in which the value of labor is not sinking every day. Our peasantry are for the most part paupers. In the Metropolis alone we are said to have eighty thousand prostitues. The gross vices of other countries are hourly importing by our aristocracy and their servants, and our clergy and nobles are ever living in apprehension of some national calamity which may level those distinctions which they deem indispensible to their existence. They maintain that they cannot live without monopolies, and if the people have their just right of representation restored to them, and religious liberty fully established, the country (that is themselves) will be ruined. This unnaturul state of things, in a country, the people of which are skilful and well informed, may be ascribed to those wars, the cause of which is thus clearly set before the people of England. Let the nation see its folly, and beware of any further crusades against the liberties of mankind.'-London Weekly Review."

The following article is from an English correspondent of the N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. Sad indeed is thepicture it presents of the distresses in England, dated Dec. 1829.

"The frequent appearance of paragraphs in the London and Provincial papers published in this country, are calculated to mislead those who, from political motives, inquire into the condition, as well as those who read for the purpose of obtaining a knowledge of the real state and situation of Great Britain.

The mature interest of a great mass of the population of the United States of America are so associated with this country, in various ways, that, however long they may have been separated by time, however great the separation by distance, there must exist an union of those affectionate feelings which unite man to man, that under whatever circumstanses any of these people have emigrated, they must look back upon their native country with those feelings which possess a child who has left his fostering parent. The relation of distresses in this country,

« PreviousContinue »